The Dragon Republic - Full Recap
A note before reading: This recap is spoiler filled. The 3rd book in this series is being released later this month and if you’ve read The Poppy War, and The Dragon Republic but don’t remember everything that happened in book #2 and want a refresher this is for you. If you haven’t read it then I don’t recommend you read this post.
The book starts off with a flashback to Nehza as a child with his younger brother. Mingzha is the youngest of the children in Nehza’s family and the only one not destined for military service. He’s doted on by their mother and not denied anything. On the first day Nehza is permitted to watch him on his own Mingzha convinces him to go down toward the grottos on their property where he is killed.
In present day the Cike sail on the Petrel into the port city of Adlaga. They’ve been traveling for 3 months and, so far taken out 29 targets on their way to their primary one, the Empress. They are now in the employ of the Pirate Queen Moag who mostly deals in contraband opium imports. Rin is struggling with her opium addiction and the visions the phoenix is sending her. She is also struggling with leading the Cike. She’s always wrestling with Chaghan while he questions every decision and gives her orders.
The empress appears at the end of war celebrations in Adlaga where they are set to assassinate their 29th victim. Rin loses control and attracts attention, the empress is taken away to safety. Chaghan drugs Rin to get her back to the boat. When Rin lost control she badly burned Unegen (their best spy). He couldn’t make it back onto the boat. Enki (their healer) stayed behind with him and Chaghon informs Rin when she wakes up that they will not be returning and have left the Cike. They return to Ankhiluun in Rooster province to see Moag. She refuses to hold up her end of the deal they made and instead tells Rin she will provide her the money and supplies needed to go after the empress after she sinks a ship from someone stealing from her. Rin convinces Moag to reveal Kitay’s location and she visits him to find that he still wants nothing to do with her or her efforts to assassinate the Empress.
Moag has given them a ship to use, an opium skimmer called Caracel. They come under attack by a ship called the Cormorant. It’s a specified attack that leads to their capture. Nezha shows up on the ship and reveals they’ve been brought to the camp of the Dragon Warlord where Rin learns that Nezha had been captured and held captive by the federation after she last saw him and believed him dead. The Dragon Warlord, Yin Vaisra, wants to recruit the Cike to help overthrow the Empire. She agrees to join them and has them go back to get Kitay (who was not at all happy to come along).
The ship’s physician has been forbidden by the Dragon Warlord to give her any opium so she suffers through withdrawal. She is now forced to confront her nightmares and fight to regain control of her mind and her life. She regains control of herself and goes to Vaisra who shows her that she can control her flames and gives her Altan’s trident to wield.
The ship arrives in Lusan where the Dragon Warlord is to meet with other leaders and the Empire at the Autumn Palace for the noon summit. Upon arrival Kitay escapes off the ship to find out that his father has been killed. He goes back to Vaisra and demands troops and a seat at the table as lead strategist. Rin is taken into the Autumn palace as a “prisoner” of Vaisra’s. She sits through hours of meetings with the squabbling warlords and then Daji calls for a break and takes Rin with her through tunnels of the palace. Daji tries to convince Rin to join her and offers answers to how Rin can have her mind back from the Phoenix in exchange for her loyalty. Rin refuses and tries to fight and then Chaghan helps her out and Ramsa’s bombs detonate destroying the palace. Suni, Baji and Rin help get an injured Vaisra out and then Aratsha leads her back to the ship.
They arrive at the Dragon Province in the city of Arlong. Rin learns that Nehza’s family has been planning this coup his whole life. Rin tries to call her fire after getting mad at Nehza’s brother Jinzha and it won’t come. Something is wrong in her mind. Chaghan takes her into the immaterial realm where she learns that she has been sealed, or locked out of the spiritual realm, in the same way that The Gatekeeper was. The Viper has left her venom behind in Rin’s mind.
Rooster, Monkey, and Boar provinces all announced their independence from the empire following the attack on the Autumn Palace, but they are not yet willing to commit to Vaisra’s war against the Empress. Tsolin, the Snake Warlord, shows up to aid them as well. To get away from the council room and the bickering between warlords Rin and Nezha begin sparring with each other and Rin gets her strength and physical ability back. Then, when it seems they’ll be stuck in a defensive war with no offensive progress through the winter, backup arrives.
The Hesperians have arrived bearing ships in the sky. They land and immediately attack Rin. She wakes up to Nezha telling her that it was a mistake and the Hesperians are interested in studying her. Rin agrees to be studied for one hour per week in order to appease the Hesperians so they will have better chances getting them to provide aid in the war against Daji.
Rin wakes to find that all water coming into Dragon Province has been poisoned. Aratsha is killed. It was the catalyst needed to convince the southern warlords that they need to act now and volunteer troops. The soldiers load up on ships to head out to war.
The Republic invades Radon, a city in Hare Province. They easily destroy the towns fleet and let the town members vote on whether they would like to join the Republic (they do). They continue taking over Hare province. Then the ships move through Ram province while trying to figure out how to get past the Ram Warlord’s defenses in their capital Xiashang. While attacking Xiashang they learn the Ram Warlord has allied with the Federation. Rin manages to get the Ram Warlord, but then fights with Jinzha who then demotes her and dissolves the Cike.
Petra’s weekly examinations of Rin become more invasive and humiliating and Augus, the Hesperian missionary, shows her kindness. Two months into their campaign, they make it to the Rat province where they find that the Rat Warlord has had all of his citizens retreat and all they find is abandoned towns and scorched fields. Kitay tries to convince Jinzha to retreat and come back after winter but he refuses so they start bringing their ships over land toward the capital city.
There is a big snowstorm and the Republic soldiers get a day to celebrate the new year. They continue after the snow subsides and find themselves under attack. They take a lot of damage and lose a lot of men/ships. Nezha calls a god to control the water around them for protection and then Rin saves him when he falls to the ground in agony. Jinzha doesn’t know his brother is a shaman and Nezha won’t talk to Rin about it because his abilities are not something he wants or wants to use.
Kitay discovers the Empire used mines in the water to destroy the Republic’s ships and determines how they can be diffused. Jinzha insists on a parlay with his former master Chang En, who is now the admiral of the Imperial Navy. He refuses to surrender and instead immediately begins the attack. Feylen appears and begins tearing apart the Republic’s ships. He gravely injures Rin.
Rin, Chaghan, Qara, Kitay and some of the Hesperians (including Augus) make it away from the battle. They are warming up by a fire when they are captured by cousins of Chaghan and Qara. Chagan and Qara’s mother decided that Nikara should have access to the gods and started the Cike, but their people have now decided that experiment has failed and there will be no more shamans in the Empire. They are Ketreyids (a clan of hinterlanders) who feel superior to the Nikara people because they know to never call the gods to their world and shamans from the empire are stupid enough to do just that. The Ketreyids are the ones who introduced the trifecta to the gods and the pantheon and then the trifecta stole their land and murdered one of them.
The Ketreyids also want to kill the Empress so they agree to help Rin remove the seal blocking her from accessing her fire. They go into a yurt to steam out the seal’s venom. The seal was neutralized and won’t corrupt her anymore but her access to the fire is still blocked. Sorqan Sira tells Rin that the only way to reach her fire is to connect herself to someone that can call the god for her (meaning Kitay). They perform the ritual and now Kitay and Rin are bonded. If one dies then so does the other, but Rin has her fire back without the fear of losing her mind. Rin and Kitay prepare to leave the Ketreyids. There is a coup as they are leaving. Bekter, one of the Ketreyids, gave the captured Hesperian missionaries their weapons back and used the chaos to have Augus kill the Sorqan Sira. He shoots at Chaghan, but Qara dives in front of him to take the bullet and convinces Chaghan to sever their bond before she dies. Because Bekter didn’t kill The Sorqan Sira himself he is now chieftain. Bekter will now lead the Ketreyids against the Naimads (Chaghan’s clan) so Chaghan leaves to warn the Naimads that war is coming.
Rin and Kitay journey back to Arlong. They float down the river on a raft Kita built for 29 days. During that time, Kitay helps her learn and control her abilities. Once they’re back they learn that Jinzha never returned. Rin gets command of the Cike back and a seat at the Council. Nezha tells Rin he thinks Shamans are all abominations and they get into a huge fight severing their friendship.
Ramsa takes Rin to see the refugee district. Refugees have come to Along from southern provinces running from the federation troops that are there. They’ve teamed up with the Empire so now the Republic has to fight two armies on two fronts. She realizes that some of the refugees are from Rooster province and while looking for Tutor Feyrik finds Kesegi. She learns her foster father died from opium, but her foster mother is still alive. Daji sends a messenger with a basket of dumplings made from Jinzha’s corpse and a letter saying she is on her way to destroy them all.
Vaisra orders two platoons to slow down the enemy troops. Rin volunteers The Cike and finally has her trident melted down and turned to a sword. Kitay sends them with pamphlets to outline their best options for maximum efficiency. They discover that the Empire has a ship the size of a fortress, large enough to hold tens of thousands of soldiers and that Tsolin’s ships are now sailing with them meaning he defected from the Republic and doubled the size of the Imperial Navy.
The Southern Warlords told Rin that Vaisra and the Hesperians had known the federation would attack and let it happen to weaken the Empire so the Republic could successfully take over. Kitay agrees that it makes sense with what they know of Vaisra and how long he’s been planning this war. Kitay then takes her to the armory where he shows her the wings he’s crafted with Ramsa’s help to give her an advantage when fighting Feylen. Rin recruits Venka to the Cike to help provide air support for her for when she fights from the sky.
The citizens of Alrong leave in preparation of the Empire’s attack. Vaisra tells Rin that when this is over she will be sent to assassinate Moag. Rin attempts to use this to her advantage by warning Moag in the hopes that she’ll help Rin get out of Arlong when needed. Nezha comes to Rin after having a dream that she died and wants to make things right between them.
The battle begins. Rin fights. Then Feylen shows up. Rin starts to fight Feylen, manages to bury him in a mountain and then is knocked into the water by a javelin. Nezha saves her and she knocks him out with opium. She’s badly injured. Daji appears. The Hesperians come to aid the Republic. Daji tries to convince Rin that the Hesperians are the true enemy, not the empire or the Munganese. Rin has to opportunity to kill her, but does not take it. Daji gets away, but Rin tells Vaisra that she died.
The Republic wins the battle. The empire is not admitting defeat so there is still a ways to go. The wolf meat general is dead, Jun escaped, and Tsolin was captured alive (and then killed by Rin), but Tiger, Horse, and Snake provinces are still holding out. They have a victory parade that the southern warlords do not attend and while they are at the funeral for all the lost soldiers Rin makes a plan with the Cike and Kitay to escape the next morning.
As Rin is waiting to escape Nezha appears in the infirmary to invite her to get drunk with him and Venka saying they’ll invite Kitay too. Rin knows it would be suspicious if she denied so she goes along. Nezha gets Rin alone, tells her the Hesperians are going to put a stop to all shamanic activity and then stabs her in the back (literally).
Rin is now a prisoner and Nezha’s mother Lady Saikhara comes to her cell. Rin learns that she worked so hard to bring the Hesperians to Nikara so they could study her and then learn how to heal Nezha from his shamanism. She then makes Rin watch as Vaisra has Suni and Baji executed. Then Vaisra turns her over to the Hesperians. Rin tells General Tarcquet about Nezha’s abilities in front of Vaisra and reveals that Vaisra let Nezha go to the grotto so Vaisra would have his own shaman. Vaisra tells General Tarcquet that she is lying. Kitay cuts himself to cause scars to form on Rin asking where she is. Rin replies with her location.
Kitay comes to rescue Rin, but has to break her hand to free her from the restraints. Ramsa sacrifices himself to create a distraction allowing RIn and Kitay an escape window. Venka is manning the boat to take them away from Arlong and they tell Rin that Vaisra is now rounding up and executing the southern warlords in order to consolidate his power. Nezha sees them go but doesn’t try to stop them. Moag sends ships to meet up with them. The ship’s physician stitches up and sets Rin’s hand but tells her that she might lose it. Rin joins Venka, Kitay, and the Monkey warlord to discuss what’s next. Vaisra has given all power to the Hesperians and is essentially a puppet emperor and Rin plans to lead the south against him as their general.
The Burning God is out on November 17th and you can buy it here.
